Teamwork - A Better Way

Christian Napier
00:13 - 00:24
Hello, everyone, and welcome to another episode of Teamwork, A Better Way. I'm Christian Napier, and I am joined by the incomparable Spencer Horn. Spencer, how are you doing? You know what?

Spencer Horn
00:25 - 00:26
I'm a little cheesed off today.

Christian Napier
00:27 - 00:28
Why are you cheesed off?

Spencer Horn
00:28 - 00:32
Because I missed Mole on Friday. You guys went without

Christian Napier
00:32 - 00:36
me. Yeah, I know. You were,

Spencer Horn
00:37 - 00:39
I'm not, I'm happy for you,

Christian Napier
00:40 - 00:55
but you were engaged in a more righteous cause. You were helping, you were helping people. And so I can't fault you for that, but yeah, we did. We didn't enjoy them all at your expense. That only means that we've got to reconvene and, and, uh, have you join us?

Spencer Horn
00:56 - 01:08
Yes, we do. They were listeners. They were taunting me with pictures of their beautiful Mexican food that we go. And we've been doing this. How for how long Christian we've been having. A couple, a trio of us at least have been getting together.

Christian Napier
01:09 - 01:18
Yeah, more than 20 years. Although I would say it's not really a taunt. It was just saying, hey, we miss you here. This picture is incomplete without you.

Spencer Horn
01:19 - 01:22
I know. And I appreciate that. Next time.

Christian Napier
01:23 - 01:34
All right. Well, here we are at the last day of March. The day before April Fool's Day, but we have no fool on our show today. We have a brilliant Brilliant guest so Spencer. Why don't you go ahead and

Spencer Horn
01:34 - 02:13
yeah? Let me put her on the screen so people can see her smiling face there Courtney Clark so good to have you she She says she's the unluckiest person in the world After witnessing the terror attacks of September 11th from her office, just 18 blocks away, she thought that she escaped unscathed, Christian. Little did she know that those events of 9-11 would cause her to develop cancer just a few years later. And her experience has caused her to become a researcher and author on resilience and adaptability to help people achieve their goals when everything else changes.

Spencer Horn
02:14 - 02:51
She's built two successful businesses and is the author of three books, including her most recent book, Re-Visionary Thinking. She works with people who want to adapt faster and achieve more. And who doesn't want that? Okay, because today we've heard so many times about the speed of change that's happening. We have to adapt faster. She's spoken worldwide with organizations like Nike, like Google, Dell, and Amazon. And as a matter of fact, we had to postpone today's episode because she is in such demand. She's like, guys, I'm sorry. I got to go save the world. And we're like, okay.

Spencer Horn
02:52 - 03:25
We'll find a time that works for you. Courtney's resilience work has been called practical, powerful, and empowering by industry leaders. She's been featured on CNN, CBS, ABC, Forbes, and USA Today. And if she wasn't writing and speaking about resilience, she would have wanted to be a tap dancer. I would have loved to see that. But she says that we were actually spared in that seeing that because she says she wasn't really that great. But I don't care. I would have enjoyed it. Good to have you, Courtney.

Courtney Clark
03:25 - 03:29
Thank you so much for having me. I'm excited.

Spencer Horn
03:30 - 04:01
So our theme today is what we call productive persistence and how to strategically adapt and outperform blind perseverance. I think that's really interesting. But before we get into that, let's just talk. We've kind of dropped your story about 9-11. It's an inspiring story, but how did your experiences with 9-11 and that cancer and other challenges shape your perspective on persistence and adaptability? Let's start with that.

Courtney Clark
04:02 - 04:52
Sure. I think that it really shaped it probably before I even realized that it did because I was so young. I had just graduated from college when September 11th happened. And then I was diagnosed with cancer four years later. And because of the cancer, they actually discovered that I had a brain aneurysm that was about to hemorrhage. So I've had cancer four times. I had a brain aneurysm. I had three brain surgeries to remove the brain aneurysm. So there wasn't much of a time in my adult life that I haven't faced challenge after challenge. And as hard as that was, what I realized that it gave me was this expectation that it wasn't going to be easy.

Courtney Clark
04:53 - 05:28
versus friends, family members, some people in my life that had a really nice run of it. And maybe it was a little easier for them. And then the first time something doesn't go their way, they're like, well, this isn't fair. This isn't right. This isn't how it's supposed to be. I never in my adult life expected things to be easy or go my way. And so in some ways, maybe that made struggle easier for me, a little less of a struggle.

Spencer Horn
05:29 - 05:56
And I think that's really important is I love that you say that. And just riffing off that for a second, I always say when people say, if you do what you love, you never have to work a day in your life. And I say, that's a lie. And the reason is, is it sets people up for failure because they're not ready to be blindsided or for the things that come out of left field. And they're like, this is not fair. But when you expect that life is not gonna be fair, it actually helps is what I heard you just say.

Spencer Horn
05:56 - 05:57
Is that right?

Courtney Clark
05:58 - 06:14
Absolutely. And that super aligns with what we're talking about today, this idea that everything doesn't always fall into place. Like it's not always easy and meant to be, and you can't always get what you want.

Spencer Horn
06:14 - 06:21
Oh, now she's quoting Mick Jagger and the Stones, man. Come on. Christian, that's speaking your language and mine, right?

Courtney Clark
06:21 - 06:40
Absolutely. But I think that's a huge part of what this is. And really, I think that's a huge part of success, is this realization you can't always get what you want, but then figuring out how to get what you need.

Christian Napier
06:42 - 07:42
Right. I love it. I'm curious, Courtney, to hear from your perspective. I've worked with a lot of people, as we all have, right? I spent about 25 years in major international events, which are very, very high pressure environments. And I noticed that the people who tended to succeed there had a combination of a roll with the punches mentality plus intellectual curiosity that allowed them to overcome challenges, whatever those might be. But is that, it's led me to think, is that innate in some people? Are some people just naturally wired to have this kind of roll with the punches personality?

Christian Napier
07:43 - 07:45
Or are these skills that can be learned?

Courtney Clark
07:47 - 08:41
Yes to both. Just like some people are inherently more positive and upbeat, but that doesn't mean resilience isn't a skill that can be learned. I absolutely believe that the people you're talking about who are wired to be more flexible, who are wired to be intellectually curious, are gonna have an easier time with this. But what you're talking about, Christian, what you just described, is something that I call growth resilience. There's two kinds of resilience. And I think a lot of the problem happens because we just think of one big bucket of resilience. And when we talk about resilience, a lot of what we focus on, a lot of what gets shared on social media or passed down as sage advice through families is grit resilience.

Courtney Clark
08:42 - 09:21
Quitters never win. You can do anything you put your mind to. Just work hard and it's gonna pay off. That's grit resilience. And we need that. That's not wrong or bad. But I think we've over-indexed on that side of it. And we need to balance that with what I call growth resilience, which is everything that you just said, that flexibility and intellectual curiosity. And what if there's another way? to do this, either a better way or, hey, that old way, we can't do that anymore. And so we don't have to do it the way we've always done it.

Courtney Clark
09:21 - 09:47
We can explore new things. So that growth resilience is innate in some people, but it's absolutely a skill that can be learned. A huge part of why it's not learned is not necessarily an individual person's responsibility, but this culture that we've created that leans so hard into the grit and just dig deeper and never give up.

Spencer Horn
10:00 - 10:40
Okay, well, I want to come back to this idea of never giving up, but there's a couple of things I want to say first. First of all, we have a fanboy who has seen you speak, and Doug Harmon, he's weighing in. Just saw you at America's Credit Union Conference in Austin. She is unique and very usable strategy for dealing with goals. It's okay to drop. We're gonna talk about that in just a second. So thanks for shouting out, Doug. So glad you're listening. You know, it's interesting, you talked about some of us have certain characteristics that help us in certain situations and that we can build upon.

Spencer Horn
10:41 - 11:16
It's interesting when during the pandemic, you know, there was some thought that the people who would actually thrive would be the people who had less extroversion, right? They were more what we consider introverts because of all the isolation. when research actually found the opposite was true. Because people who are typically more extroverted are typically more what we would consider more optimistic. And they were able to deal with the challenges better. They kind of had that innate growth mindset which helped them. But that doesn't mean that if you don't have that, that you can't adapt is what I'm hearing you say and still overcome that.

Courtney Clark
11:17 - 11:27
Absolutely, absolutely. A lot of this really depends on behavior more than, oh, this is your set point, just deal with it.

Spencer Horn
11:28 - 12:03
deal with it. So you said something that is alluding to something you talk a lot about. You and I met at a National Speakers Association Conference for Certified Speaking Professionals. I was so thrilled to meet you, and I was so excited to have you come on the show just because of your energy, your enthusiasm, and what we talk about. We have a lot in common, what you and I talk about in our respective speaking businesses. But one of the things that you were really researching was this idea that what if it's okay to give up sometimes?

Spencer Horn
12:03 - 12:11
Because you were saying a minute ago, we've been told never to give up, to have grit. You don't necessarily believe that, do you?

Courtney Clark
12:12 - 12:32
I don't believe that we should never give up. Some of the best things in my life have come from giving up some expectation that I had, a goal that I was going for, some status quo that was supposed to be right, but it really wasn't.

Spencer Horn
12:32 - 12:33
So

Courtney Clark
12:33 - 12:33
can you

Spencer Horn
12:33 - 12:38
expand on that, the need to pivot rather than sometimes just keeping on with the grit like you've talked about?

Courtney Clark
12:39 - 13:31
Sure. So I think in so many of our lives, you set a goal and then circumstances change. You were talking about in the pandemic, hi, biggest example of circumstances that change. So the personal goals, the work goals, whatever environment you were living in, everything might have been fine. prior to that huge shift. And then you kind of take a look at your surroundings, at your life, and your goals, and you go, Actually, I think this is a little outdated. So why would we continue to persist on goals if we've changed, if our circumstances have changed, if our desires have changed, just because we've been taught to never, ever, ever give up on a goal?

Courtney Clark
13:31 - 13:46
And in our research, my research team and I found that 71% of working Americans were taught growing up to never, ever give up on a goal, no matter what, even if there's been a massive change.

Christian Napier
13:49 - 14:28
So, I mean, that resonates, right? I grew up in that kind of environment, but I'm curious, based on the research that you've done and all the work that you've done, with individuals and organizations around the globe, when do you know that it's time to give up on the goal, right? Because, okay, I beat my head against this wall, I keep beating my head against this wall, at what point in time, what are the signs that I should be looking for that tell me, all right, you did your best, time to pivot?

Courtney Clark
14:28 - 15:14
Time to pivot. So I think that we do have internal voices that we can stand to listen to, but we wanna be careful for a couple of reasons. One, sometimes your internal voice is a negative Nelly. Sometimes your internal voice is going like, you don't have what it takes. And maybe that's an old teacher or a parent or somebody's voice in your head. But a lot of what we found happens to people. So there's two mindsets that you live in when you decide to pursue a goal. You start in something called evaluative mindset. Evaluative mindset is deciding, hey, do I have the resources that it takes?

Courtney Clark
15:14 - 16:05
Do I wanna give those resources? But the second you take one step towards pursuing the goal, you flip into implementation mindset. And the thing about implementation mindset is it's really hard to break. Implementation mindset does not want to be questioned or evaluated. It just wants to keep going and implementing. And so for this reason, it's really hard. This is where sunk cost fallacy. comes into play, right? Because we're like, but I've already given this much resource. I want to just keep going. I don't want to be a quitter. Pride was the number one reason that we found in our study why people wouldn't give up on a goal, even if it wasn't working out.

Courtney Clark
16:06 - 17:06
So people just want to keep in that implementation mindset. So what we found is that one of the best ways to be able to know when the time is right is to have benchmarks. And the benchmarks really are those check-in points along the way. How do you evaluate, am I making the progress that I should be making? Am I making the progress that's standard? Do I have enough of this resource? that it makes sense to keep going. One of the questions that boggled my mind in the research, it was like 86% of people said that if they were halfway to their goal at work, but the year was more than half over, they would just persist and wouldn't change a thing about what they were doing.

Courtney Clark
17:09 - 17:32
So that you've run out of a resource, time, you're running out of a resource and your benchmark should be telling you, that doesn't have as high a chance of paying off. You should reevaluate, you should do something different. Not necessarily change the goal, but you gotta supplement in some way. But people just, that persistence is just beat into us, just keep going, you can do it.

Spencer Horn
17:41 - 17:50
I was thinking about one of my favorite movies. It's a little outdated. It's called Galaxy Quest. Have either of you seen that? Kind of a spoof

Courtney Clark
17:50 - 17:51
on the

Spencer Horn
17:51 - 18:38
Star Trek thing. And they have that line, never give in, never surrender. It's actually a very timely topic with a lot of the things that are happening in the world right now, even in politics. There are things that sometimes we just feel like we don't, we just have to persist when sometimes we need to change and let it go and pivot. So that's really interesting. I don't want to get political. I want to stay focused. I want to get to team performance. So can you share an example of where your work and research, where somebody has successfully adapted using what you call productive persistence rather than relying on what you call blind perseverance?

Courtney Clark
18:39 - 19:20
Yes. So I use a case study of Marvel Comics. So speaking of movies, but Marvel Comics, back when they were a, they made comic books and for decades and decades, they were the leader. And so I was really excited to learn what that path looks for them. It was like this straight growth path right up until the mid-90s. The comic book market crashed. So at that time, Marvel Comics, they doubled down. They did what they had always done, what they knew how to do. They made more comic books, special edition this. That didn't work. They were still losing money.

Courtney Clark
19:21 - 20:11
So they decided to create little collectible figurines, more things for their collectors to buy. Didn't work. They had to file for bankruptcy. They managed to stay afloat just barely by selling off the licenses to their characters. And that was okay for several years, but then they decided instead of just doubling down they were gonna stop and do something completely differently. And what they did was stop selling the licenses to their characters. This little bit that had just kept them afloat by allowing other organizations to use their IP, they stopped that. They brought all their characters in house and they created the Marvel Cinematic Universe.

Courtney Clark
20:12 - 20:52
which, spoiler alert, been going pretty well for them. So that shows this ability to pivot, to not do things the way we've always done them, right? It worked for decades. Why isn't it working now? But at some point they just stopped the pity party. and started doing something completely different. And I think that shows when we throw out the way we've always done it or the way we expect things to be, we can create success. It just may not be exactly what you wanted it to be, exactly how you expect it. It's

Spencer Horn
20:52 - 20:55
really about creating a new J curve, right? A whole new business model.

Courtney Clark
20:56 - 21:22
Right. They thought that people wanted comics. They thought that that's what had made them successful was their method of delivery and this market, their collectors. But actually the value lay in finding a broader market and expanding their method beyond these comic books.

Christian Napier
21:24 - 21:47
So Courtney, I want to come back to something that you said when you were talking about the 86%. I found that statistic to be very interesting. Like, oh, we're behind. We're not going to, I mean, if we continue on our current trajectory, we're not going to meet it, but we're going to keep doing the same thing that we do anyway. And you indicated that the number one reason for that was pride, right?

Courtney Clark
21:48 - 21:48
Yes.

Christian Napier
21:48 - 22:28
Which is, you know, We've had on the show before Dr. Paul Jenkins, who tells us that our brain is wired for two things, to keep us safe and prove us right. And the prove ourselves, yeah, we were right in setting that goal. So it sounds to me like if we're going to get to the point where we need to pivot, we have to have some intellectual honesty and humility. What is it that allows someone to kind of break that cycle? To say, in your Marvel case, where they got to the point where they're like, OK, it's been working for decades.

Christian Napier
22:28 - 22:43
It's not working now. We do have to do something different. What is it that breaks that kind of cycle of pride that allows us to become a little bit more humble and open to pivoting?

Courtney Clark
22:44 - 23:34
Well, in the case of Marvel, man, they hit rock bottom. So I don't think there was maybe a lot of pride left to have. And they realized it's this or nothing. And certainly when you hit rock bottom, there is kind of nothing to do but throw it all out and start over. But we were talking earlier about benchmarks. And I do think that benchmarks play a very interesting role in hopefully allowing you to recognize this isn't going the way that I thought. That doesn't mean that you have to just throw it all out. But it does mean you have to enter a renegotiation about the goal or your plans to get there.

Courtney Clark
23:34 - 24:13
And if you don't, then you're really, that's really the surrender, right? Continuing, what's the saying about like doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results? If we continue to throw resources towards something when our benchmarks are telling us something's not right here, then that's actually really giving up. You feel like you're not giving up because you're telling yourself, I'm still going for this, but you're not actually getting anywhere. That's the waste.

Spencer Horn
24:15 - 24:27
I think there's something about putting a patch on an old piece of clothing. Sometimes it's just not gonna work out. So let's- Something

Courtney Clark
24:27 - 24:29
has to go shopping, Spencer.

Spencer Horn
24:30 - 24:31
Exactly, we have

Courtney Clark
24:31 - 24:31
to go,

Spencer Horn
24:33 - 24:35
let go of that pride, let go of those old clothes, get something new.

Courtney Clark
24:35 - 24:38
Get some new jeans, man.

Spencer Horn
24:39 - 24:43
That's for sure. Let go of those skinny jeans, right, Christian? Yes,

Courtney Clark
24:43 - 24:44
please.

Spencer Horn
24:45 - 25:29
Yeah, I never wore skinny jeans. They're not in my vocabulary. You're my hero. Let's shift to something that is, I think, a real hot button today, and that's burnout in today's society and building some adaptability. It's a huge issue for leaders and their teams, don't you think? Yes. So what role does adaptability play in preventing that burnout? And how can leaders really foster that in their teams? Because it seems like we're doing more with less. I mean, it's just we're trying to be leaner and leaner. More efficiency is always at the heart of everything that business does, it seems.

Spencer Horn
25:29 - 25:40
And sometimes to its own detriment, they're trying to be so efficient they're not effective. But how can leaders really? inculcate these practices that you teach with their teams?

Courtney Clark
25:42 - 26:34
So when I looked at burnout, and I am not an expert in burnout, but I do think burnout and resilience do play, you know, they go hand in hand. So what I found so interesting about burnout was that it's not just about having too much to do. It's about having too much to do and having not enough meaning, purpose, not understanding the bigger picture of how your work plays into the value system of the organization. It was really, there's a detachment there that makes burnout possible, because we all know of people who work so hard and they're not burned out, and that is because they feel that inspiration or purpose, they feel some meaning in their work.

Courtney Clark
26:35 - 27:06
So I think that what adaptability allows is it's not just like one foot in front of the other plodding along, but adaptability, you have to see the big picture in order to adapt. You can't change and move and flex if you don't understand the environment. And so I think it's that understanding and then going, oh, okay, well, if this doesn't work, then we're gonna try this that helps people not burn out.

Spencer Horn
27:07 - 27:49
Yeah, I love that answer. It's interesting. I was, you know, you've been a president of a Speakers Association in Austin before. I'm currently president of the Mountain West chapter. And so I was participating in our Speakers Academy on Saturday. I was one of the speakers there. And one of the exercises that I had, these people who are working to build their speaking business, To help them with the mindset and the resilience that they need, we identified just three of their values. And the question that I asked them, Courtney and Christian, was what percentage of the activities you did last week were in alignment with what is important to you, with what your values are, with what gives you meaning?

Spencer Horn
27:52 - 28:00
And if it's less than 50%, that's a pretty low bar, chances are you're going to be struggling and frustrated.

Courtney Clark
28:01 - 28:06
Yes. Yes. So can I tell you something that I think you are going to love given that you said that?

Spencer Horn
28:06 - 28:07
Please do.

Courtney Clark
28:08 - 28:30
One of the strategies that I teach teams, and individuals can use this as well, is that when you have to let go of a goal that's not working out, that's one of the biggest struggles that people have, right? I was taught not to give up. I've been pursuing this. How do I let go? How do I give up on a goal that's not working

Spencer Horn
28:30 - 28:33
out? Because they feel like they're a failure if they don't follow that mantra.

Courtney Clark
28:34 - 29:37
I mean, me too. I didn't come at this just from an academic perspective. I think we've all lived this. So here's what I found. You don't have to just throw the goal away and be like, OK, we're never going to think about that again. What I actually recommend that groups do is expand the goal, what I call supersize the goal, and find the highest and best version of the goal. So Dan Heath calls this, what is the goal of the goal? And when you find that big goal, that North Star, the reason that you set the goal in the first place, It's actually easier to get to that, this bigger super-sized goal, because a lot of times what we're calling a goal is actually a plan.

Courtney Clark
29:38 - 30:27
So if it's just like step one, step two, step three, step four, and then we get there, and there's only one way to get there, that's actually a plan. It's a plan that has an end point, but just because it's an end point doesn't make it a goal. A goal should have multiple plans, paths, lots of different ways we could accomplish it. So we wanna supersize that goal, like Marvel Comics, right? If you think about a supersized goal, they thought their goal was sell more comic books to more collectors, but really their supersized goal was get as many people as possible to fall in love with these characters' stories.

Courtney Clark
30:27 - 31:13
The medium, the method, the market, all of that is fungible. But we have to get as many people as possible to fall in love with these stories. And so they realized there was an entirely different way of doing that. They supersized their goal over just like, we're going to sell this many comic books. And so The way, the easiest way I think that you can supersize a goal is to turn what I call ABC goals into VIP goals. So ABC goals, that's achievement, behavior, or comparison. Achievement goals are like, OK, we're going to sell this as a company this year.

Courtney Clark
31:13 - 31:54
Behavior goals, a lot of times those are like the personal goals that you would set for yourself that the new year, I'm going to tap it and start or stop doing this. And then comparison, that's like, oh, well, our competitors are doing this, so we have to, too. Or, you know, I want to follow in my mom's footsteps. Those are totally fine goals. But they're not supersized. So we supersize by turning ABC goals into VIP goals. And VIP goals are based on values, ideals, and purpose. So like what inspired me to set this goal in the first place?

Courtney Clark
31:54 - 32:24
What ideal did I hold that made me care about this? What value am I trying to live out? And that's what I thought about when you said that. When we know what our values, ideal, and purpose are, then we realize we're playing all of those out in the things that we're calling our goals. So we just need to think about them from a bigger perspective, and then we might find that there's other ways to get there than what we realized.

Spencer Horn
32:39 - 32:53
I love that. That really spoke to me. And I love the fact even more, Christian, that you used the word fungible. Yes, expanding our vocabulary. Exactly,

Courtney Clark
32:53 - 32:54
because then we can use

Spencer Horn
32:54 - 32:58
words like fructify, because then our goals will truly fructify. Wow. You

Courtney Clark
33:00 - 33:09
know, in fifth grade, I beat the boy I had a crush on in the spelling bee, and he never spoke to me again.

Christian Napier
33:09 - 33:15
His loss. So you were focused on ABC instead of VIP in the spelling bee, right?

Courtney Clark
33:15 - 33:22
Well, you know what? I look back at it and I realized this was one of those situations where two goals were in competition with each other. And

Spencer Horn
33:23 - 33:28
what's the bigger goal? Is to find somebody that's not threatened by your competence.

Courtney Clark
33:29 - 33:39
I did it. I did it. Alexander from elementary school was not my end goal.

Christian Napier
33:42 - 34:27
This idea of focusing on the big end game as opposed to taking a more tactical approach to goals, equating goals to plans, that really resonates with me. I come from this sport industry background, right? So in sport, when you have major events, those events absent something like a pandemic. I mean, basically, the goal is immovable. The event will be delivered on these days in this year, and it is what it is. You can't go back to the International Olympic Committee and say, hey, we're kind of behind on venue construction, so can we just move the games back a few months?

Christian Napier
34:27 - 35:03
But what you're saying is, hey, all right, well, we have this end goal, but there are many paths to get there. Oh, well, if we can't do A, then maybe we can do B, and we can still achieve our objectives. So we see this in sport all the time. And one of the things that I wanted to ask you about was this notion of blind perseverance, and how blind perseverance may blind us to significant opportunities that might present themselves, but we don't see them because we're just so focused on this, I got to do these three things, and we don't see them.

Christian Napier
35:04 - 35:07
So I'll give another sports analogy, and I apologize, but...

Spencer Horn
35:08 - 35:08
Oh, this is

Christian Napier
35:08 - 35:38
great. The team around here that we all love to hate is the Los Angeles Lakers. I'm just going to be completely honest. We're Utah folks, so we don't like the Lakers, right? Every NBA team or any sports team will say at the outset of their season, oh, our goal is to win a championship. But only one team can win a championship, right? And so you kind of set forth a plan. Well, this is what we're going to do in this season to grow our team and to bond. And we're going to deploy these certain strategies and tactics and coaching.

Christian Napier
35:39 - 36:13
And we're going to teach these skills, blah, blah, blah. So teams go out and do that. But what do the Lakers do? They go there, they do their thing. And the critics of the Lakers are like, well, their salary capped out. And they're really, you know, they've got 40-year-old LeBron James leading them. and a very often injured Anthony Davis and a bunch of scrubs. Like there's no way that these guys could ever possibly compete for a championship. And then what happens in the middle of the season? One of the very top players in the league, Luka Doncic, all of a sudden becomes available.

Christian Napier
36:15 - 36:58
And what team is ready to take advantage of that opportunity? our nemesis, the Lakers, right? And now their fortunes have completely changed, right? Because they were open to the idea that, you know what? We don't actually have to live under these constraints that we thought that we had. We now have another path that we can pursue that nobody in their right mind at the beginning of the year would have seen as a remote possibility. Nobody would have considered it. But then through a series of crazy events, it happened. And I just feel like a lot of us, me included, I'm like the team that just, OK, I got my plan for the year, and I'm going to go down here.

Christian Napier
36:58 - 37:26
And they're not open to, they can't even see these kinds of off the wall, off the charts opportunities that might present themselves. Because no, we couldn't do that. If I look at my team the Utah Jets now, there's no way we could get Luka Doncic over here. No way The Mavericks will never give those guys up. No way that we can make that happen but what you're telling

Courtney Clark
37:26 - 37:34
me is That happening and if sports gossip got to me then that was big news so

Spencer Horn
37:38 - 37:54
Well, that's a, that's a great, it's a great analogy, Christian. And it's kind of like the money ball idea, right? I mean, you've got to, you've got to look for the goal and maybe change the players as you go and, and, and just figure out what's working, what's not, and look at data.

Courtney Clark
37:54 - 38:18
Yeah. Not against goals. I think goals are really helpful, but you're exactly right. If we are too stringent about our goal has to be this, and there's no room for the environment to press on us and shift us in any way, then we're going to lose opportunity.

Spencer Horn
38:21 - 38:56
I think it was General Patton said, A good goal violently executed this week is better than a perfect goal next week. So sometimes it's better to get started. There are some personalities that really struggle with, they've got to have everything in place and then they've got this perfect plan. But the idea is, is get started. And you may find that you need to take a different, you know, different attack. and you can change as you go, but it's more, you know, just things can't ever be perfect. So the idea is that you're going to have something show up that you didn't expect.

Spencer Horn
38:57 - 38:58
You're going

Courtney Clark
38:58 - 38:58
to

Spencer Horn
38:58 - 39:21
have a 9-11. You're going to have, you know, you're going to have something that I guarantee you there's something going to happen this year that's going to impact people who are listening to their job, to the economy, to the marketplace. And so you've got to figure out how to do things differently. And when you're ready for that, It doesn't make it necessarily easy, but it makes it easier.

Courtney Clark
39:22 - 40:15
Well, you're coming to expect it. You don't know what it is, so you can't be ready, but you're ready to be ready. And I think that that's huge. What we found in our research, and I think this is incredibly relevant to what y'all talk about, is that, in fact, leaders were the least likely to be willing to give up on plans that weren't working out. Even with proof that it wasn't turning out, leaders still wanted to execute on the plan. And that could be because it's their plan. It could be because leaders are feeling like, but I love the way we've always done it, maybe more so than their direct reports.

Courtney Clark
40:15 - 40:23
But we found that it was, in fact, leadership who was less flexible. And of course, that's who you need to be the most flexible.

Spencer Horn
40:25 - 40:52
Oh, I think that's so important. There's this Japanese concept of Kaizen, right? And what they do is they take the ideas from the front line, the people actually doing the work, and if they can come up with a better way of producing or doing the work, they get rewarded. But I think it takes management flexibility to say, hey, some great ideas can come from the front line, right? Isn't that similar to what you're saying?

Courtney Clark
40:52 - 41:23
Absolutely. Absolutely. Well, and what I'm really saying also is that sometimes they can only come from the front line, not just because of their vantage point, but because it seems that People who are direct contributors who aren't managing other people maybe don't feel as beholden to the plan and the goal. And that then allows them to have that detachment and openness to possibility that we really need.

Spencer Horn
41:34 - 41:35
Christian, you got something?

Christian Napier
41:36 - 42:21
Well, it was just a thought. Sometimes in organizations, folks that are in the C-suite may look at what people are doing on the line and say in the complaints that they have about or the ideas they have to improve and say, well, that's all fine and good, but they don't understand the big picture, right? If they only understood the big picture, then they wouldn't be suggesting what they're suggesting because they just live in their little sphere and they don't really see everything else that's going on. And if I understand correctly, what you're saying is actually the folks up here in the C-suite are not willing to see the little picture sometimes.

Christian Napier
42:21 - 42:22
It's

Spencer Horn
42:22 - 42:27
called the CEO disease there in the ivory tower. Sometimes they are separated from reality.

Courtney Clark
42:28 - 42:30
Yeah, I think both things are true.

Christian Napier
42:32 - 42:59
Yeah, so how do you, as a leader, how do you break out of that mindset, right? To say, oh, well, you know, we're up here and we see the complete picture. We have a more holistic understanding of everything and that empowers us to make better decisions because we have this broader view. Like, how do you break out of that and develop a willingness or an openness to new ideas, to different ideas?

Courtney Clark
42:59 - 43:36
Well, one of my hopes is that this research is going to help organizations realize that their view may not be as robust as they think it is. Because again, if they are so tightly focused on, these are the goals we set, this is in our three-year strategic plan, so we're gonna execute on it no matter what changes in the environment, that's not a very broad view. They may see more inputs than the direct contributors, than the people doing the day-to-day work. You can be up in a tree house and still looking down at the ground.

Courtney Clark
43:37 - 44:20
So I think that maybe with some facts, the data, we can encourage them. And what I'm doing with some of my clients, now I'm just starting to do, is allow organizations to themselves take this assessment and compare themselves to the national average. So how did their leaders compare? How does their staff compare in terms of grit resilience versus growth resilience? Are they maybe more willing to be adaptable? Or boy, are they just super narrow focus on goal, goal, goal? So my hope is that maybe data will help leadership realize that they're not where they need to be.

Courtney Clark
44:20 - 45:04
And then I think giving them some strategy, teaching them these strategies about understanding what are the VIP goals, because it's really easy to say, like, it's okay to let go of a goal. But if we don't have something else to replace that goal with, then you feel really bereft. And there is some research on goal disengagement, not my own research, but there's research on goal disengagement showing that you almost can't let go of a goal without replacing it with something else. But finding the right thing, that's the key. And that's where I really recommend those VIP, those supersized goals.

Spencer Horn
45:05 - 45:11
And these are principles that people can find in your revisionary thinking book, I imagine.

Courtney Clark
45:12 - 45:19
Not yet. I just closed the research study. Revisionary thinking is my old work. So this book,

Christian Napier
45:19 - 45:19
I'm

Courtney Clark
45:20 - 46:01
gonna sit down to start writing in another six weeks, five weeks. So I'm really excited to be able to get this out in the world. And I'm gonna be asking people though on my website to help contribute their stories. Maybe vote on some titles. Boy, I'm really... We've got a lot of ideas that we want to hash out because what we found is actually kind of a surprising dichotomy here. I thought when we started doing this research, I thought that people were going to be all in on grit resilience and Moderately like, oh, okay. Yeah, you're right.

Courtney Clark
46:01 - 46:41
I do need to change. I do need to adapt. But I thought there was going to be a lot more resistance to the idea of balancing the grit resilience with growth resilience. There really wasn't. I was so delighted to find that almost overwhelmingly respondents in our study were like, yes, totally get it. Flexibility and adaptability. We got to change. Oh, yeah. I want my kids to be adaptable and resilient. I want my bosses. I want my clients, my friends, the people that I admire in the community. They were all in on adaptability and flexibility as concepts.

Courtney Clark
46:43 - 47:25
But then when we started talking about the behaviors that adaptability and flexibility require, things like pivoting to another plan, giving up on a goal, they were like, absolutely not. Over two thirds of people said, I don't think so. So it was a really interesting ratings chart when people talked about like, what are the characteristics required for success? And there was adaptability right up there at number two, but then all of what I would call the activities at the very bottom.

Spencer Horn
47:26 - 47:43
Can you share some examples of what companies that you work with? We talked about some big companies that you work with that actually do that, that have taken this research that you found to heart and actually practice that. Can you give us some positive examples for people to emulate?

Courtney Clark
47:44 - 48:24
Yeah, this is brand new. I'm sorry to tell you that this is brand, brand new research. Y'all are among the first people to hear it. So right now, it's kind of just eking out in there in the world. I worked with a hospital group back in December that is saying that they're having a lot of success with it. But probably my best story just happened a week ago. I spoke to a group of folks who are leaders in marketing teams and credit unions all across the country. And I was talking about supersizing your goals and VIP goals.

Courtney Clark
48:24 - 48:58
And this one gentleman, and I've never gotten the chance to meet him. So I heard this story from my client afterwards, but he had won a painting. And the painting, it was a Michael Jordan painting, and it came with a Taylor Swift box. And they had asked him, hey, would you be willing to donate the Taylor Swift box back to our fundraiser auction? And the guy was like, actually, I really want to keep the Taylor Swift box. I got kids that are really into Taylor Swift, but I'll give you back the Michael Jordan painting. It was kind of a whole thing.

Courtney Clark
48:58 - 49:40
He kept both of the items, but then my speech was the next day. And apparently, this guy got on the phone with his wife right after my session. And the backstory that he ended up sharing with everybody else was that he had grown up without a lot, there wasn't always enough food on the table, but He got this job finally in the credit union industry, and he and his wife had enough, but they had a child with special needs. And he said, I realized sitting in this session that all of our goals have been personal financial goals.

Courtney Clark
49:41 - 50:15
And we need safety and security, and we need to take care of our child with special needs. But all of our goals were very small, and they only served us. And so I walked out of that session, and I got my wife on the phone, and I taught her about supersizing goals. And in that 15-minute break, we sat there and we supersized our goal. And we decided that we are going to give a million dollars to charity in our lifetimes. That's our new super-sized goal. It's bigger than just our family.

Christian Napier
50:27 - 51:19
That's a beautiful goal because at the outset, you may not know exactly how you're going to achieve that goal, right? So it opens you up to all kinds of possibilities. Well, we could go down track A or B or C or D, but we have this long-term vision in mind. So I realize that we've gone on for almost an hour. It's like, wow, where did the time go? So I'm gonna ask my final question, then I'll give Spencer time to ask his. his final question. But from your perspective, how... Actually, I'm gonna go back to the person that you just talked about, who says, we're gonna give a million dollars to charity in our lifetimes.

Christian Napier
51:22 - 52:11
How important... not just on the VIP side, but on the opposite side of VIP, how important is it to break through or overcome assumptions that might limit our goals, right? So I'm guessing with these VIP, the million dollar charity folks, again, they probably didn't know how they were going to achieve it, I find myself quickly falling into the trap of assumptions. You know, like, okay, I make assumptions about the way things are currently and where things could potentially go. And I limit myself. You know, I downsize my VIP. I don't supersize it. I might downsize it because I start making limiting assumptions.

Christian Napier
52:12 - 52:53
And so in the work that you do with people, how do you help them to potentially overcome some of the limiting assumptions that might hinder them from really setting supersized goals, you know, and instead just kind of setting little small things because they think, well, I couldn't really do that. I couldn't really set aside a million dollars, donate a million dollars to charity. I mean, we can't really do that. I just, I just work at a credit union and when I have a kid with special needs, I couldn't do that. So how do you get people to like overcome the doubt and remove these assumptions that might be limiting their ability to achieve great things.

Courtney Clark
52:54 - 53:53
I think a key factor in not thinking small is when you have these supersized goals, there's not one way to get there. So of course you don't have a plan because the whole beauty of supersized goals is you get to have five plans or 10 plans. And that's why supersized goals are ideal. They're better than the goal that's like, I just have to, it has to go perfectly. It has to be this step. and then everything has to go in a perfect line, and if any one thing doesn't work, then that goal is ruined. So I say that super-sized goals are more motivating because they're bigger, but they're actually easier to achieve because you have no way, you can't Limit the number of ways you can get there.

Courtney Clark
53:53 - 54:39
So it sounds crazy To say we're gonna raise a million dollars in our lifetime going from like we got to save every penny to raise a million dollars But then what you realize is they could start a nonprofit Or they could get their 10 best couple friends to all pool together and create a foundation or a fund. There's not one way. Saying, you know, we're going to raise a million dollars in our lifetime doesn't mean I'm going to write a check from my checkbook. And that's the beauty of a supersized goal is it almost, by default, kind of smacks that voice of reason in the face of like, I mean, you can't if you only can think of one way to do it.

Courtney Clark
54:40 - 55:15
But the point is, think of 10 ways. Think of 20 ways. Try this one. Try that one. Try a million of them. And so this is the kind of adaptability that I love to see. And this I have been working with organizations on. This is my book called Revisionary Thinking. I teach organizations to think creatively. If we're not going to do it the way we've always done it, then let's not just come up with one way that we could do it as an alternate, but let's come up with 10 ways that we could do it as an alternate.

Courtney Clark
55:16 - 55:32
And being able to then flex back and forth between our options, that makes the really, really hard, I'm not going to say makes the impossible possible, But it makes really, really hard things, really, really big goals, all of a sudden, much more doable.

Spencer Horn
55:35 - 55:48
Sounds great. I've just got a little fun way to end our show and our time together with you. We're going to do a lightning round on productive persistence, okay? So I'm going to ask you a bunch of questions. I want super short answers. Ready?

Courtney Clark
55:49 - 55:49
Yep.

Spencer Horn
55:50 - 55:52
One word you'd use to describe resilience.

Courtney Clark
55:54 - 55:54
Adaptability.

Spencer Horn
55:55 - 55:58
Your personal go-to song when you need motivation.

Courtney Clark
56:00 - 56:00
Oh, roar.

Spencer Horn
56:02 - 56:04
A productivity hack that you swear by.

Courtney Clark
56:06 - 56:08
Turning off my email.

Spencer Horn
56:09 - 56:11
Nice. What's harder, starting or sticking with it?

Courtney Clark
56:13 - 56:15
For me, sticking with it.

Spencer Horn
56:17 - 56:20
One thing teams need to stop doing to become more persistent.

Courtney Clark
56:22 - 56:34
need to stop doing to become more persistent. I think most teams don't need to be more persistent. I think teams need to be more adaptable. So I'll say come up with alternative ideas.

Spencer Horn
56:35 - 56:38
Great, what's your favorite way to reset when you hit a wall?

Courtney Clark
56:40 - 56:44
I'm a napper and I like to write poetry.

Spencer Horn
56:46 - 56:49
A leader or a mentor who modeled persistence for you?

Courtney Clark
56:50 - 56:59
Lee, she passed away at 97 years old and she answered the phone at her work right up until the day she went into the hospital.

Spencer Horn
57:00 - 57:05
Oh, nice. So finish the sentence, productive persistence is?

Courtney Clark
57:06 - 57:14
Productive persistence is knowing when it makes sense to let go and when it makes sense to keep going.

Spencer Horn
57:15 - 57:19
What's one small habit that makes a big difference in staying the course?

Courtney Clark
57:21 - 57:27
Oh, in staying the course, I mean, I'd say support, a support system.

Spencer Horn
57:28 - 57:33
What's something that used to drain your energy, but now you've learned to let go?

Courtney Clark
57:38 - 57:49
Competitive stuff like games. I'm not super competitive, but then it really used to bother me and now I just don't care. I just go crazy.

Spencer Horn
57:50 - 57:58
Okay, so here's another one. When you kind of have to grind through a big project, coffee, tea, or something else?

Courtney Clark
58:00 - 58:05
Flavored water. Can you imagine this on caffeine, Spencer?

Spencer Horn
58:08 - 58:20
So liquid death or something like that? No. Liquid death is flavored water. Yes, excellent. Anyway, that's all I have,

Christian Napier
58:20 - 58:49
Christian. Wow. Well, Courtney, I really appreciate you spending a few minutes. Well, it's almost an hour, to be honest, with us. If people want to learn more about the work that you're doing, look at one of your existing books or something that's coming up. super excited about seeing all this research. And thank you for giving us a sneak peek into it. But if they wanna connect with you and learn how they could help, you could help them or their organizations, what's the best way for them to connect with you?

Courtney Clark
58:50 - 59:04
Sure, my website is CourtneyClark.com, C-O-U-R-T-N-E-Y, C-L-A-R-K. And I'm on Instagram and LinkedIn and Facebook and all of the things.

Christian Napier
59:06 - 59:19
All right, fantastic. Thank you, Courtney. And Spencer, you've been helping teams improve their performance for decades. If folks are out there and interested in learning about how they can develop high-performing teams, how should they reach out to you?

Spencer Horn
59:20 - 59:27
Message me on LinkedIn, and we do it every day. So Christian, how about you? Don't you love him, Courtney? He's so awesome. Great questions.

Courtney Clark
59:29 - 59:35
I don't want to play sports with him. He said he's a sportsy guy, and I'm not competitive. Well, truth

Christian Napier
59:35 - 59:52
be told, I'm not competitive either, but feel free to reach out to me on LinkedIn. Yeah, it's easy place to find me. Look up Christian Napier. All right, Courtney, thank you so much for this wonderful hour. We really appreciate it. Listeners and viewers, thank you as well for joining us. Please like and subscribe to our podcast. We'll catch you again soon.